So I’m a sophomore at Pascack Hills High
School and the wrestling gods have smiled on me. I’ve made the varsity team at the 141-pound
weight class. It’s early in the season
and our team heads to another town for an afternoon of scrimmaging. I’m feeling pretty good about myself having
made the varsity squad on one of the best wrestling teams in New Jersey. My coach nonchalantly tells me, "You’ll be
wrestling a guy named Bessette." That’s fine,
I don’t know a Bessette from a hole in the wall. Then I look a across the room at my
opponent. Standing in front of me is a
very intense looking individual made up of sheer muscle, skin, and bones. (I on
the other hand am missing one of those critical attributes.) He also has one other distinguishing
feature. He has a mohawk hair cut. Now you have to remember, this is the mid
70s. Unlike today where every third
wannabe biker has a mohawk, back then, unless you were in a western, you didn’t
have a mohawk.
To make a long story short, before I had
time to say, “Oh Sh*t” I had my jock strap wrapped around my forehead. I subsequently took a pretty good beating all
afternoon. On the bus ride back to Pascack
Hills (sans underwear) Bucky, our coach, tells me not to worry about it. He says, “He’s very good.” Basically insinuating that I really stunk up
the place up, which I did. But I was
okay with it because he was at such a level above me; I rationalized that he
must be a senior, and I just learned a tough rite of passage lesson.
This thinking was fine until my junior
year. We go back to the same school to
scrimmage again. I’m wrestling 141
again. Guess who is standing across from
me, with no update to his hairdo? You
guessed it, Mr. Bessette. At this point
I’m thinking to myself, “Oh Come On.
This is NOT happening!” Any balloon full of ego I might have had, just
got a large pin stuck in it. Long story
short again, this particular year is pretty much a repeat of the year before,
except I got to hold onto my underwear.
I’m improving. But what was very
upsetting about this year was I learned that my opponent was only a junior like
me. I had one more humiliating year to
go.
Senior year is a different story. Unfortunately Bessette’s team comes to our
school to scrimmage. I should have bought a lottery ticket. We're both 141 again. Now this is just
great. I’m going to be taken apart in my
own house, in front of a large audience.
What’s even better is now I’m the co-captain of the team.
All of the young guys have circled the
mat where we’re going to do battle.
They’re expecting me to just do away with this foe from another
land. Hell, we’re Pascack Hills, I’ve
been wrestling varsity for three years, and I’m our co-captain. How could I possibly lose?
Time to man up. We’re doing takedowns for a while and I
finally get one, although my opponent is protesting that it wasn’t clean. I disagree and tell him, “We’re going to
count that one.” So this particular year
my clock was not cleaned quite so thoroughly. Luckily for me, divine intervention struck while
we were wrestling that last year. During
one exchange we were tangled up and rolled off the mat with significant
velocity. What eventually stopped us was
my opponent’s head hitting the cider block wall of our wrestling room.
Contest over, I win ;-}
In life there are two reasons why people
are motivated. It’s either desire or
fear. I think I proved the latter - It’s
amazing what you can achieve when you’re struggling to avoid embarrassment.
